April Donation Request

For 10+ years HASA has been providing ad-free, fee-free JRRT fanfiction that is operated by fandom, not corporate interests. There are no tests to take to join, and has all genres, characters, ratings & story lengths.  HASA depends on fan funding.

If you become a member, your contact information is not for sale to marketeers. We get hundreds of readers a day, which makes HASA a great place for readers and writers. To do this HASA depends on donations from members and readers, both one-time gifts and subscriptions. If only a small percentage of our members and readers donated every year or got a monthly subscription we would be in good shape. Our account is still negative; if we had more subscribers it would be easier to keep ahead.

Our PayPal account has three ways to donate:
• Monthly subscriptions - set up a monthly recurring donation in amounts from $5 to $25 dollars.
• Yearly subscriptions - set up a recurring annual donation in amounts from $15 to $50 dollars.
• "Just because" donations of any amount.

If you're a little short on spare change at the moment, donations of time are always appreciated. There's an archive full of stories just waiting for comments, authors who would dearly love an email complimenting them on their work, challenges that need entries, playlists that need to be created, and forums begging for discussions. If you are a reviewer, check out a story today. If you aren't a reviewer, no better time than now to sign up. If you are an author, please consider donating a new story.

Thanks for enjoying HASA!

Julie

HASA How-to - April 2013

How do I...

...set up a workshop?

While HASA has Beta status for works in progress, sometimes you need to show stories to a smaller set of readers before you unleash them on the general public. Or maybe you and a few others jointly write stories and need a place where you can all work at the same time. The Workshop is where you make this happen. It offers a private area where several members can work together on stories. This is in contrast to the My Stuff/My Stories area where you can only work on your own stories and no one else can get in there. It's also a way to avoid sending around email attachments and wondering if everyone can read the file format. For answers to general questions, be sure to check out the Workshop FAQ.

1. Be sure you are logged in.
2. Go to the Workshop section
3. Look at the top of the right hand menu area for the button "Add a New Workshop".
4. Click the button.
5. When you see the form, enter a name for your shop. If you are working on a story, using the story name is a good idea. You can also use your own name or your writing group's name.
6. Add a brief description in the text box.  If you need some inspiration for names or descriptions, check out the Site owned workshops here.
7. Click the "Add" button.
8. The system creates your workshop and shows you the shop home page. By default, the shop is set to Private, meaning only you and invited members can see it.

Now you have to add some members to your shop, so you can work together.

1. Go to the home page of the shop if you aren't already there.
2. In the navigation column, locate the "Shop Info" section.
3. In that section, click on the "Edit Members" button.
4. You should now see the Manage Members page.
5. Scroll down the page until your see a multi-select box. It will display all the names of all active HASA members in alphabetical order.
6. Click on the name of the member you wish to add.
7. To select more than one person, hold down the CTRL key while you click.
8. When your list is complete, click "Add Members to Workshop".

OK, so you have a workshop, you have members and now you need a story (or two or three)!

1. Go to the home page of the shop if you aren't already there.
2. Scroll down the main shop page until you can see the Stories section.
3. Click the button "Add Stories to Workshop".
4. On the Add Story page you have three options:
   a. Add an existing story directly - pick a story from a drop-down list and click "Select". The story is linked into the shop.
   b. Clone an existing story - pick a story from a drop-down list and click "Select". The system makes a copy of that story including all of its chapters and adds it to the shop.
   c. Create a new story - Click the "Create New Story" button. You'll go to a standard story form. Fill it out and click "Add". This creates a new, empty story for you to work with.

You're set! You can now work in the shop just like you work in your my Stories section of My Stuff, except that as many people as necessary can work there, not just you.

HASA Reviewed Stories April 2013

Reviewed Stories April 2013

Since the previous Bulletin, 3 stories passed through review while there are currently 11 stories waiting for reviewers. Make an author's day and review a story!

Member participation is crucial for reviews. The more people are involved in reviewing, the more different opinions are represented. Having more people involved also means that stories pass through review more quickly – which is good for everyone. If you are an active reviewer, why not go and check out a story?

Or, if you are a writer, take the plunge and submit a story for review; and when you do, please remember: Put one in, take one out.

By submitting a story for review, you are asking nine other members to read and evaluate it. So why not do for the other authors who have a story in review what you'd like other reviewers to do for you: check out one of the stories already in review and give it a read.

Becoming a reviewer

If you're not an active reviewer, but think you can spare a bit of time... – even if you just review one or two stories in a month, every review is welcome. If you are logged in, you can sign up here if you've been a member of HASA for thirty days or more.

Daunted by the idea of reviewing? Don't be, reviewing at its simplest comes down to asking yourself: "Would I recommend this story to someone?" Then, whether the answer is 'yes' or 'no', you can make a choice from the capsule reasons to clarify your decision. If you want to, you can add a few more words to convey what you (dis)liked about the story, but just the capsule reason is perfectly fine as well.

And remember: even if you think you're too critical or not critical enough: your review is only one of nine, and all points of view are welcome. Not every reviewer has to review every story and in the end it does all level out to a balanced judgement.

Reviewed story spotlight

These stories have passed through review since the previous bulletin. Congratulations to all authors; well done!

Nightmares with Nightshirts by Linda Hoyland
Rating: Adult
Genre: Romance
Era: 3rd Age – Post-Ring War
Summary:Éomer's wedding night seems doomed to disaster when he learns of the customs of his new bride's homeland.

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes by Tanis
Rating: General
Era: 2nd Age - Pre-Rings
Genre: Drama
Summary: A very young Legolas asks a favor of his father at Mettarë.

First Sorrow by Ragnelle
Rating: General
Genre: Drama
Era: 1st Age
Summary: Heir of the House of Hador, fear not, lest Darkness claim you. Fear not the Fate of Men, be it soon or late, nor fear to grieve those lost. Main characters: Túrin, Sador, Húrin and Morwen. Warning: Deals with the canon death of a child.

Make an author's day, review a story or post a comment.

HASA News - Birthdays, Challenges, stories

April Birthdays

Is your birthday in April, and would you like a drabble about your favourite character or topic? You can request it here.

Not sure what the birthday cards are about? Have a look at some recent ones.

Challenges

Just as Challenges come from Prospective Challenges, Prospective Challenges come from Nuzgûl, and Nuzgûl need attention to grow from tiny ideas into big stories. Step into the Nuzgûl hutch. The bunnies don't bite (much). And who knows what ideas you may come out with?

How about The Mouth of Sauron lives? If enough people want to write it, it becomes a Challenge...

The Nuzgûl of the Month!

The all-new April Nuzgûl, from Archeress: Unseasonal Weather – Tell me a story about the weather being wrong for the time of year. All races.

If you think you can come up with ideas for Nuzgûl of the Month later this year, please post to the discussion thread as well. Ideas are always welcome!

March Stories

All writers love feedback. It is the lembas and miruvor that sustains us as we write our story, and leaving a few words about a story you read is always a nice thing to do, whether the story is new or old.

Every fifteen minutes HASA highlights a story chosen at random from the Reviewed and General stories in the archive. Read the currently featured story on our front page.

Many talented writers are publishing every day. In March:

--- 3 Reviewed Stories were published or updated.

--- 35 General Stories were published or updated.

--- 1 Beta Story was updated.

(Please note, you need to be logged in to view beta stories.)

Thank you for reading at HASA. Enjoy!